PPLE has an undeserved attachment to some perception that it is so much better just because of the brand. Some brands do earn their reputation, but what about Apple? There are some companies that studied the defect rates of hardware components in Apple products compared to the competition and found Apple to be inferior. When it comes to software, Apple’s side is usually lacking advanced functions and thus can be considered less potent.

So what is it that motivates some people to buy from Apple?

Thee appears to be some consensus — even if merely a manufactured one (by marketing) — that those who have Apple gadgets are wealthier. Apple’s advertisers subscribe to this strategy and like Gillette’s the “Best a Man Can Get” Apple sought to make it seem like everything from Apple is the best of a kind, even when rival phones, for instance, are better and cheaper than the iPhone.

One could argue all day about what’s “cooler”, but on technical grounds alone there is no reason for anyone to buy from Apple. From economic ground too there is never a compelling reason. It’s like fashion, it’s worth what people claim it to be worth.

My friend Fabio Milho described himself as an “Apple fanboi” a few months ago, but days ago he said he had a susprise for me and then he showed me that he had bought an Android phone, just days or weeks after I told him about the evils of Apple. He no longer uses his iPhone. No wonder Apple is scared. Taken using his Android phone was the following photo (less than a day ago).

And here is a new ad.

No, I don’t recommend Macs at all. GNU/Linux is much better and it respects the users’ rights and freedoms.

Patents being exchanged, promises with regards to products, etc.

This makes Novell (at least) the 4^th company which falls into the very same trap. Previously in the series:

• Sun Microsystems
• SCO

The links above contain side-by-side comparisons.

T turns out that Larry King, whom I recently mentioned, is not the only technophobe in showbiz. Have a look at this one.

According to Starpulse.com, O’Reilly dubbed all iPod users “geeks” and implied that those who bought one were socially inept.

In a move illustrating how in touch he is with young people he spluttered: “I don’t own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod. Did you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them?”

Related: Ballmer’s iPod

PPLE’S moves seem slightly worrisome. They have just incorporated encryption into their kernel.

Apple’s so-called ‘DRM‘ of the kernel does not only mean an adoption of dodgy technology for the benefit of the company rather than the customer. Binaries (without accompanying source code and compilation details) are bad enough as they are. They hide the intention of a program. DRM‘ing them makes them not even runnable, regardless of what they are set to do.

Apple is being hypocritical here. It boasts virtualisation of Linux and Windows (even full installation of Linux), but it doesn’t permit OS X to run on anything other than Apple’s pricey hardware. It’s a one-way relationship.

[Video omitted one week later]

This shows nothing unprecedented or novel, but it can be pleasant to watch if you fancy operating systems.

The last time I embedded an off-site video, this led to trouble and invalidated the markup. Let us hope for better luck this time around.

SING virtualisation software, someone from Hungary illustrates how Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows can be worked on simultaneously (view screenshot and further details), without the need to boot into a different, independent partition.

This comes only a week or so after Boot Camp from Apple began supporing Linux. It now caters for Linux boots, as well as Windows boots. It relies on the availability of Intel chips, which replaced Power PC in an important strategic move. This makes the prediction and vision of triple-boot machines a reality, but moreover, it does so without the obvious perils. It obviates the need to reboot Mac OS X. This equips Apple with a huge selling point.

ACH platform (including its distribution and/or version) can often be characterised by its default wallpaper (background picture), among other visual signatures such as the login screen and icons set. Here is a nice and fairly complete gallery of default wallpapers . It contains wallpapers many of us have seen in Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.